


it started off with a kiss (how did it end up like this?)

by beetle



Series: Twenty Kisses [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Porn, Canon Compliant, First Kiss, First Time, Foreshadowing, Friends to Lovers, Last Time, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Rogue One, Shameless Smut, sciencepilot, shameless angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 13:11:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10617585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: Written for prompt number nine fromthis list of twenty kiss prompts: "one small kiss, pulling away for an instant, then devouring each other."Hotot chose the pairing: Galen/Bodhi.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hotot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotot/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Set just before Rogue One. Canon.

 

“He may, of course, be quite suspicious of you and of the veracity of my message. Whether or not it was coerced. If Saw thinks you’re a spy, or lying . . . that could spell trouble, indeed,” Galen Erso added grimly. Bodhi Rook, glancing anxiously around the murky alley in which they stood—closer to the gloomy, dark northern egress, than the brightly-lit southern one that led back to the Imperial Boulevard—snorted, the precious message already stowed away in one of the many inner pockets of his duster.

 

“He’d have to be insane not to be. But I’ve been known to talk my way out of trouble, a time or two in my life,” he tried to reassure them both. Galen smiled his absent, enigmatic smile. Bodhi knew he was probably only kidding himself that the smile was also as fond as it was amused.

 

“And into it, as well, I’d wager,” Galen mused, his hazel eyes dark and endless in the alley-murk. In his plain, homespun garb, of the sort that his farmer-father might have worn back on Grange, he could have been anyone. Especially in the dark of night and of alley.

 

So Bodhi could have, for that matter. But unlike Galen Erso, Bodhi hadn’t thought to change out of his coveralls and lightweight, dun duster. He’d been so late back from this delivery, he’d had to dash straight from the Imperial Hangar, to the coordinates Galen had sent to him. He was obviously every inch an Imperial cargo pilot.

 

 _Not anymore_ , he thought, as grim as Galen had been moments ago. Then he blinked, realizing he’d been staring into Galen’s melancholy eyes for perhaps too long.

 

“Is something the matter?” the older man asked quietly, brows furrowed ever so slightly, his fine, straight, salt-and-pepper hair lifting off his face in the wake of a more than slightly rancid breeze.

 

“Nothing,” Bodhi said, flushing so dark, he felt as if it could be seen from orbit. “Nothing, I just . . . I’m not going to see you again, am I?”

 

Galen blinked, his smile slowly fading. “Even if everything goes exactly to plan, there’s no guarantee that we’ll see each other again, no.”

 

Bodhi nodded. He’d known that. _Of course_ , he’d known that. And he also knew the odds that everything would go to plan were practically nil. It was entirely likely they’d both wind up tortured and dead, the Death Star would be completed, and all that they’d risked their lives to prevent would come to pass.

 

“Don’t look so sad, Bodhi,” Galen said suddenly, his smile returning, both entirely present, for once, and unexpectedly sweet. It took Bodhi’s breath away. “Everything will go as the Force wills.”

 

Bodhi snorted again: a short, bark of a laugh. “That’s what I’m afraid of. How do we even know it’s on our side?”

 

“We don’t,” Galen said simply, shrugging and looking toward the bright lights of the Boulevard. His profile was noble . . . wearily so. “All we can do is try. And _hope_.”

 

And when his gaze returned to Bodhi, that smile widened. “For long years, I was trying, but without hope. And then I met _you_ , and . . . you gave that back to me, Bodhi. _Hope_. That’s something for which I can never repay you . . . only thank you.”

 

A sweet, dull ache—one he’d been noticing he felt frequently around Galen Erso, or even just thinking about the man—took up residence in Bodhi’s chest, close to his heart. That ache radiated outward, to the rest of him, as a flush of warmth and yearning in some places, and heat and need in others.

 

“For a while, now, I’ve been . . . been hoping, but didn’t have the guts to . . . to _try_. To be proactive. To _be_ the change I want to see. But since I met you . . . fuck, Galen . . . you lit a fire under my ass. Under my _skin_. You made sitting back and watching the galaxy go to shit not an option, anymore.” Bodhi looked down at Galen’s chest, broad and firm, and covered in a loose-weave hempen shirt, with one large, right pocket. He smiled. “I can’t repay _you_ for that. Only thank you.”

 

“Then perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . we may consider ourselves even.”

 

“Perhaps.” Though Bodhi would _always_ consider himself indebted to the unassuming genius before him.

 

The silence between them spun out for so long, Bodhi finally looked up again, and caught the strangest look on Galen’s face. Strange only because . . . it was the same look he felt on _his own face_ most often in this man’s presence.

 

Or, it was the same look in the split second before Galen’s face settled back into its usual, pleasant neutrality.

 

“I suppose I had best let you be on your way.”

 

“Yeah.” Bodhi swallowed, not daring to blink or even move his head, for fear the tears that were suddenly in his eyes would fall. “I should—I should go . . . before someone. . . .”

 

“Yes, of course,” Galen said, stepping back. Bodhi automatically stepped back, too. Or started to. Then, suddenly, he was stepping _forward_ , crowding into Galen’s personal space as the other man stepped back and back, till he was against the wall behind him. Bodhi closed the distance between them until he could feel Galen’s body heat, then stopped just shy of their bodies touching. He looked up into the taller man’s eyes, searching them for some sign that the warmth, the heat, the burning, the _yearning_ —the _need_ —he felt was maybe mutual. At least a _little_.

 

“Was . . . was there, ah, something else you needed, Bodhi?” Galen asked, sounding breathless and a bit confused. _Uncertain_.

 

“Yeah, Galen. I need. . . .” Bodhi trailed off, biting his lip as he finally looked away, at the Boulevard to which he should have returned already, before a patrol spotted them together and demanded identification. “Um. I need—”

 

— _your arms around me your body against me your mouth on mine your hands bruising me in their haste and eagerness your weight on top of me_ you inside me—

 

And before Bodhi could finish with a lame “never mind”—even as he started backing away from Galen, eyes and face averted—the other man was stepping away from the wall and into _Bodhi’s_ space, one large hand coming up to tip Bodhi’s face toward his own. Then he was leaning down, his eyes closing as Bodhi’s also fluttered shut.

 

A moment after velvety darkness took Bodhi, soft, questioning lips touched his own bitten, somewhat chapped ones, pressing them lightly before that pressure was gone, leaving cool, garbage-redolent air in its place.

 

“I . . . I suppose that was for luck,” Galen was saying, low and brusque . . . but not regretful. In fact, he sounded rather . . . hungry. “You’ll need all you can get.”

 

Bodhi’s eyes, still shut and mind utterly, giddily a-whirl, bounced up on his toes, his hands coming up to cup Galen’s stubbly face. “If _that one_ was for luck, then _this one_ is just for _us_.” And despite his closed eyes, Bodhi’s kiss landed exactly where it was supposed to.

 

Galen’s surprise was palpable, and manifested as a slight gasp, which Bodhi instantly took advantage of, opening his own mouth to tease Galen’s lips with his tongue. The sound the older man made was indescribable: all pent-up yearning and desire and a million other things Bodhi wouldn’t have been able to name even had he _not_ been distracted by the way Galen’s big hands suddenly settled on his hips and pulled him closer. Pulled him into a deeper, harder kiss than Bodhi would have ever expected, had he ever expected a kiss from Galen Erso at all.

 

Despite Bodhi being the one to initiate this kiss, Galen swiftly took control of it with focus and precision, and teasing, tickling talent. He possessed Bodhi’s mouth as if they’d been kissing each other for years . . . yet took his time mapping Bodhi’s mouth with more dedication than any navigator had ever mapped a star system.

 

Moaning into the kiss, Bodhi’s arms wound around Galen’s neck and he let the older man pull him closer and flush. Their bodies molded and melded together as if they were made for nothing else.

 

For a timeless eternity, they stood in the narrow, stinking alley, kissing and touching, discovering and learning each other. And just as Bodhi realized that Galen was more than half-hard against his stomach, he _also_ realized that _he_ was more than half-hard against _Galen’s thigh_ . . . and grinding against the solid muscles.

 

After that realization—one that Galen was apparently having at the same moment—Bodhi found himself whirled around and pressed against the wall, now, in the spot that’d been warmed by Galen’s body.

 

Galen’s kiss turned into love bites that trailed down Bodhi’s neck, even as one of his hands left Bodhi’s hip and snaked between their bodies to cup his urgent hard-on and aching balls. Galen’s grip was tight, firm, and warm even through the durable canvas of Bodhi’s coveralls.

 

“Wh-whah? Whahya _doin’_?” Bodhi gasped out, eyes wide but unseeing as he gazed up at the cloud-cover above. “ _Galen_ —”

 

“Doing what I should’ve done— _what I’ve wanted to do_ —since the day I met you, Bodhi Rook,” Galen murmured on Bodhi’s throat, his grip tightening further and turning into rough, squeezing strokes. “Now, come for me, pretty bird.”

 

“Gale—”

 

“Come. _Now_.”

 

“Fuck!” Bodhi exclaimed in a hoarse, low chuff of sound as his body raced to the edge and didn’t fall over, so much as belly-flop into an orgasm so sweet and sharp and sudden, it was _agonizing_.

 

He didn’t even realize he was shouting and babbling nonsense, mixed with Galen’s name, until a hungry, hot mouth covered his own, claiming it with a hard, insistent kiss that carried on until well after Bodhi’s climax had mellowed somewhat into aftershocks that made him moan and whimper.

 

By the time his breathing had returned to normal—though not his heart-rate . . . that would be quite a bit longer in happening—Galen’s kiss had also mellowed into something languorous and slow, wanton and savoring. His hand was still cupping Bodhi’s now damp crotch possessively, but loosely.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bodhi said again—after Galen stopped kissing him to nuzzle his cheek—when he was able to speak at all. “Fuck, _Galen_ , that was. . . .”

 

“You are so lovely,” the other man breathed, catching Bodhi’s floppy, limp-ish hand as the pilot tried to feel between them to return the favor. Galen pulled the captured hand up to his mouth to kiss it, which caused Bodhi to giggle at the soft, wet tickle of Galen’s lips. “You’re lovely and I’m a coward for not doing this while we still had _time_. . . .”

 

“But there’s _still_ time,” Bodhi panted out, opening his eyes to gaze into Galen’s and smile goofily. “Time _enough_ , anyway, if you’ll just lemme. . . .” he freed his hand, insinuating it and shifting his body so he could get at Galen’s groin. The scientist smiled his usual absent smile and didn’t try to resist Bodhi, this time, though his eyes were sharp and devouring.

 

 _Bodhi’s eyes_ widened as his hand encountered wet homespun covering the softening remnants of Galen’s hard-on.

 

“But,” Bodhi began, confused, and Galen chuckled, stealing a brief, almost chaste kiss. “I didn’t even touch you.”

 

Still chuckling, Galen grinned, boyish, but wry. “It’s been a very _long_ time for me. And you’re _very_ beautiful.”

 

Blushing and pouting, Bodhi’s face went up in flames. “I—I wanted to see your face when you came.”

 

“Next time,” Galen promised, leaning his forehead against Bodhi’s. And though Bodhi opened his mouth to gainsay that, he didn’t have the heart to actually say: _There might not_ be _a next time_.

 

There was no sense in belaboring the obvious, after all.

 

So, in the end, he merely nodded, and kissed Galen again—his hand still cupping Galen’s stubbly cheek and jaw—until the heavens above had opened in a chill, miserable drizzle that neither man noticed. The intensity of feeling and desire between them had already swept them up and away once more, soft moans and groans—gasps and sighs—drifting toward the weeping skies.

 

#

 

“Force speed you on your path, Bodhi Rook,” Galen Erso whispered after the young pilot’s wiry, anxiously buzzing frame, as it diminished down the rain-swept alley toward the bright, hectic lights of the Imperial Boulevard.

 

By the time Bodhi reached the intersection, the rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started, leaving Galen bereft and bemused in almost equal measures.

 

He wanted nothing more, in that moment, than to follow the pilot who’d so recently, so briefly become his. To claim those sweet, uncertain lips and take that deceptively slim body. To go with Bodhi Rook wherever the Force took him—took _them_.

 

And it could take them both _very far_ , indeed. Far beyond the Outer Rim, even, to worlds where the Empire had less meaning than a ray of overcast sunlight. To somewhere they could live out the rest of their lives in peace and safety.

 

Together.

 

For a moment, anyway, Galen allowed himself to dream. . . .

 

Then, he tugged his soaked jacket close around him, in an effort to ward off the invasive chill of early spring. When that didn’t work, he hunched his shoulders and shoved his right hand in his jacket pocket (clutching at the small pistol he kept with him, at all times). Then he turned toward the opposite end of the alley, which let out onto a gloomy, nameless side street where those seeking anonymity were left to themselves to find it.

 

A man of imminent practicality—despite also being a notorious dreamer—Galen winnowed his capacious mind to other matters. He was even most of the way home before he realized he was still brushing his tingling lips with wistful, reverent fingers.

 

 _Next time_ , he thought, his mouth curving in a small, sad smile as he finally shrugged and continued on his way.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Say "hi!" on [The Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


End file.
